By Obanu, Zak A
Tropical Africa has a vegetation well -suited to 1 ivestock production, and
traditional pastoral herdsmen, with age-old experience, in whose hands
the bulk of our livestock is kept. According to FA0 (1985) livestock
production and slaughter estimates (Table 1) , Africa has more cattle,
goats and sheep than Europe. Comparing absolute numbers of cattle, for
example, kept with human population many tropical countries in Africa
have over 0.8 cattle/person/annum. Yet the meat industry in Africa
remains 1 argely undeveloped and the people's diets shockingly deficient
in animal proteins despite huge imports of both raw and processed meats.
Hann (1967) and Obanu (1986) have reviewed the problems of meat handling
tn tropical Africa; some of these problems and their solution hinge on
meat processing.
By far the most popular method of meat preservation in tropical
Africa is dehydration, especially with solar energy or by smoking. Meat
dehydration is traditional in these countries and the products are
customarily accepted and desired. The essential feature of dehydration
as a food preservation method is that the availability of water, that is
water activity (aw), in the food is lowered to a level at which there is
no danger from microbial growth (Scott, 1957) and, in so doing, the water
content is reduced to minimize rates of biological, chemical and physical
processes which limit the storage life of foods. The quality and
stability of dehydrated foods are thus related to the reduction of a, in
these foods. Since the reduction of a, results from the concentration of
the internal aqueous environment, it may be achieved by removing the
water as in evaporative dehydration (i .e. drying) and/or by adding
solutes to tie up the water as in salting and sugaring.